Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers as well as associated computer equipment and computer components.
Computer systems typically include a number of components that generate waste heat. Such components include printed circuit boards, mass storage devices, power supplies and processors. For example, some computers with multiple processors may generate 250 W of waste heat. Some known computer systems include a plurality of such larger, multiple-processor computers that are configured into rack-mounted components, and then are subsequently positioned within a rack system. Some known rack systems can include 40 such rack-mounted components in such rack systems, which will generate as much as 10 kW of waste heat. Moreover, some known data centers include multiple rack systems.
As data needs grow and change, data storage needs and data centers need to adapt. As one example, as data centers grow in complexity, two or more areas within a data center may each be operated most efficiently at environmental conditions that differ from one another.